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Imagine that Fire Emblem and Disgaea had a baby, and that baby turned out to be a prodigy...

"The demo was quite long, and I had to actually pull myself away from one of the two stations because I wanted more people to be able to get their hands on it. Telepath Tactics won my heart pretty quickly, and it should do the same to any other fan of Fire Emblem, Disgaea, or Shining Force." --Destructoid

“With destructible buildings, bridge construction to create new flanking opportunities and the ability to throw people into lava, it sounds like Telepath Tactics may contain all that is necessary for my tactical needs.” –Adam Smith, Rock Paper Shotgun

“The gameplay recalls Sega’s Shining Force series, mixed with a bit of Advance Wars — as a fan of both, I definitely approve of the direction this one’s taking!” –The Indie Games Blog

Telepath Tactics is a turn-based
tactical RPG in the tradition of Fire Emblem and Disgaea. Featuring mod support, a robust map editor, and a dialog editor, you can create your own campaigns and download others' off the internet!

On top of single player, Telepath Tactics also features 2-to-6 player local multiplayer matches (i.e. you and your friends playing together in
the same room, Super Smash Brothers style).

Telepath Tactics is being developed for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Setting

Telepath Tactics takes place in a fantasy-steampunk universe that averts
most of the tropes you're used to from these sorts of games. Magic
doesn't exist: instead, there is psionics and steam-powered technology
reliant on a volatile, crystalline substance called vibra. Cavalry don't ride horses: they ride giant, armored praying mantises. There are
no elves, no dwarves, no goblins, no dragons. The world is populated by humans, steam-powered mechanical golems, and other, original races (such as the shadowlings,
disembodied heads from the nether reaches of the earth that quite literally feed on human
suffering).

Shadowlings were the first to discover the secrets of vibra mining.
Crucial to powering steam tech, vibra turned out to be big business–and
no place had it in greater concentrations than the Dundar Archipelago, a string of islands governed by the Roman-style Dundar Empire. The influx of moneyed interests to the islands has corroded the empire's adherence to democratic traditions, and the native human population now faces increasing exploitation as Dundar's politicians turn a blind eye.

Story

Emma and Sabrina were nearly too young to remember when their family was forced into slavery in the vibra mines of Kovit. When their father took ill, the sisters were forced to make his quota or face starvation. After a shadowling slaver took pity on them, they escaped, fleeing into the wilderness. They were found and taken in by a tribe of Lissit, reptilian warriors, who raised the sisters as their own.

Now Emma and Sabrina train tirelessly, bent on revenge and the prospect of rescuing their ailing father from bondage. They will need all of their wits--and the help of some unlikely allies--if they are to succeed...

Gameplay

Telepath Tactics
borrows the best parts of our favorite tactics games to create a dream team of available
strategies in battle.

Throw enemies off of cliffs; push enemies into water or lava; fling friends across gaps;
set your enemies on fire; freeze
them; blind them; cripple them; stun them; use hit-and-run tactics
with cavalry and bowmen; teleport; grab item drops; stick your ranged units on
the high ground to boost their effectiveness; the list goes on and
on.

Telepath Tactics also brings
fresh, brand new new environmental manipulation mechanics to the
table. Freeze water and build bridges to create new routes across
water or lava; build barricades to
brunt an incoming attack; destroy walls, doors and bridges to open up or
close off routes of attack; push boulders, barrels and tables in the way to
block off certain routes; shoot through open windows; place down
explosive charges to create a trap for an unwary opponent. Telepath
Tactics supports all of this and more.

Attack damage is 100% predictable, and attacks always hit
unless there is some intervening factor (such as the attacker
having been blinded, or the target having some special defensive
status effect). In this regard, it is very much a game of skill
akin to chess. Chance will seldom determine the outcome of a battle; victory depends on you and your wits.

And you'll need all the wits you can get: the
enemy AI in Telepath Tactics is aggressive and reactive. The enemy will not just sit
around the battlefield waiting for your characters to wander into
aggro range or trigger a script—the AI will actively
maneuver and seek out ways to get at your most vulnerable characters. It will backstab you, compete with you to grab useful items, break down your barricades, and shove you right into the lava every chance it gets.

Telepath Tactics features 22 unique character classes, each with its own strengths,
weaknesses, and battlefield roles. The single player campaign uses unique, named characters based off of these classes,
each with its own custom stats and leveling schemes.

On top of all this, Telepath Tactics features
extensive mod support that allows you to create custom battles, custom tilesets, custom destructible objects,
custom items, custom attacks, custom character classes, and even
whole single player campaigns filled with unique characters, enemies,
dialog and cut scenes. Everything is stored in easy-to-read files that can be opened by any text editor, so modding is a cinch.

The game also comes with a full-featured map editor
to make creating new battles fast and simple. There's even a built-in dialog editor to let you add dialog trees and create cut scenes! Make your own scenarios, or
download someone else's: Telepath Tactics supports all of the above.

There is a lot more I could say about the game. Rather than talk your
ear off, however, I will direct you to the latest draft of the Telepath Tactics manual with more (and more detailed) information on how the game works.

Every
single thing you read in the section above is currently in-game and
working. There is no question about whether this project is too
ambitious to complete: it isn't. The lion's share of the really tough
stuff is already done. I just need more resources to give the game all
the content and polish it needs.

Telepath Tactics is playable, but there's still a lot of content to create for the game. It needs a lot more art, for one thing. Specifically:

Character portraits;

gender variants for each character class (all characters are currently just male or just female);

Additionally, I'm looking to fill out the soundtrack with high quality tracks. Composer Ryan Richko is currently working on that, but I need money to hire him to keep going. Here's a sample of what he's done so far:

I've compiled a huge array of rewards to encourage folks to back the game as generously as possible! Check a column to see everything you'll get by backing the game at a given tier:

With the base funding met, I can afford to have everything in the "What do we need money for" section above created for the game. That doesn't mean we have no use for more money, though! I
took a poll of project backers and took their most-wanted features for
the game's stretch goals. Here is what we came up with:

Achieved! $22,000 - Extra Character Classes with Animated Sprites. This was easily our most popular stretch goal. Reaching this goal means that we'll have more visually distinct class sprites around to use for stuff like unit promotions!

Achieved! $28,000 - Dungeon Tileset with Traps, Openable Doors, Scripted Levers and Buttons. This is a really cool stretch goal because it not only means a bigger variety of tiles, it also means a wider variety of ways that characters can interact with the battlefield, which in turn means bigger mission variety.

Achieved! $34,000 - Randomized Battlefield Generation. This was the third most popular stretch goal. Procedural level generation is really tricky to pull off well, but it adds a ton of replayability when it is! Reaching this goal means I can take some time off of work to code this feature properly.

Achieved! $38,000 - Extra Branch in the Main Campaign. Only just narrowly edged out by random battlefield generation, the Extra Branch stretch goal means that I will present the player with a significant decision during the campaign; this choice will affect which missions the player gets from that point forward.

$46,000 - Mobile Ports. Our fifth most popular option, the Mobile Ports stretch goal will allow me to have the game's art redone to be easily tappable (and visible) on super-high resolution displays like Retina.

I'm Craig Stern, the guy behind the company Sinister Design. (You also might know me as the creator of IndieRPGs.com, but I consider myself a game developer first and foremost.)

I've
been designing board games and card games since I was a child, and I've
been creating video games for more than half a decade. Over that time,
I've put out a whole slew of turn-based strategy RPGs. Those games were
pretty good, but I consider them all a dry run: Telepath Tactics is the
real deal. Telepath Tactics is the culmination of years of carefulthought
and design work. I am not messing around with this game: I am gunning
to create the most elegant, comprehensive, tactically deep strategy
role-playing game in existence, and to then give it over to you, the
community, to extend as you see fit.

Please contribute to make
Telepath Tactics happen; you'll have my sincere gratitude, and one
excellent turn-based tactics game to show for it!

(In addition to pledging, you can also help Telepath Tactics out by voting for it on Steam Greenlight--this will help ensure that the game sees a Steam release.)

Risks and challenges

The big risk with small teams is that the programmer takes off, leaving the hapless game designers with code they can't read or use. That is not a risk with me: I am my own programmer, and I have a history of finishing what I start. (You can check SinisterDesign.com for examples of my past work if you're curious.)

I do not like to leave projects unfinished; it's just my personality. I stuck with my last game (Telepath RPG: Servants of God) for more than four years, then released it when it was done. Unless I am abducted by government agents or run over by a truck, Telepath Tactics is going to be completed. The only real question is, am I going to have the resources to get this done with all the assets it needs?

You can even edit the character shadow blobs or the dialog window graphics if you're so inclined.

I did a video giving a quick overview of how to mod certain aspects of the game back in December--it's a little out of date, but the general method remains the same. You can watch it here if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch…

So, you know all that stuff that went on with Diablo III and Sim City? This is what's nice about being indie: I have no publisher to make me stick bloated, pointless DRM in my games. All Telepath Tactics backers who get the game will get it DRM-free. Period.

(One caveat: if you're holding out for a Steam version, be aware that Steam games are *always* DRM-protected insofar as the game is tied to your Steam account. I don't control that: that's just how "Steam rolls," so to speak.)

The main campaign will feature perma-non-lethal-K.O. In short: when characters reach 0 health, they have suffered injuries so bad that they can never fight again. However, they're still alive and will speak during cut scenes. (Basically, it's permadeath without you having to create a zillion variations in every cut scene to account for who fell in battle.)

Custom campaigns can feature perma-non-lethal-K.O., actual permadeath, or something more forgiving, depending on how you choose to script your campaign.

Leveling in Telepath Tactics is comparable to leveling in Fire Emblem (though it's actually more similar to Yggdra Union, if you're familiar with that title).

It works like this: characters level up upon reaching 100 experience points. Each character has a certain number of "leveling points" in every stat. Think of a leveling point like a card in a deck of cards. The game "shuffles" the deck, then selects two different stats at random; those two stats improve. Characters have different likelihood of improving in different areas based on how their leveling points are distributed, but you can never be sure of how characters will develop until they level up.

Characters can also gain new attacks upon reaching certain levels. (In the public demo, for instance, Emma learns both Shove and Pull upon reaching level 2.)

If you prefer player-directed development, however, it's quite possible to mod the game to feature player-directed stat development upon level-up.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $20 or more
About $20

GOLD PRE-ORDER

Get a free copy of the finished game whenever it's released, PLUS an awesome high-resolution digital poster designed by artist Benn Marion AND a special forum badge marking you as an Above-And-Beyond Backer!

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $25 or more
About $25

IMMEDIATE ACCESS

Get immediate access to a Kickstarter-exclusive, DRM-free copy of the game as soon as this Kickstarter campaign ends, with continuing updates during the game's development; the ability to play player-created campaigns from day one; a free copy of the finished game whenever it's released; and a free Steam key whenever the game appears on Steam! (You'll also receive the forum badge and digital art.)

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $30 or more
About $30

SOUNDTRACK

Get a Kickstarter-exclusive, DRM-free copy of the game as soon as this Kickstarter campaign ends, with continuing updates during the game's development; the ability to play player-created campaigns from day one; a free copy of the finished game whenever it's released; a free Steam key whenever the game appears on Steam; the forum badge, the digital art, AND you'll get a copy of the game's soundtrack upon release!

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $40 or more
About $40

CREDIT

Kickstarter-exclusive, DRM-free copy of the game as soon as this Kickstarter campaign ends, with continuing updates during the game's development; the ability to play player-created campaigns from day one; a free copy of the finished game whenever it's released; a free Steam key whenever the game appears on Steam; the forum badge; the digital art; a copy of the game's soundtrack upon release; AND you'll appear in the Telepath Tactics end game credits with a special thanks for your generosity! BONUS: you'll also get a free copy of tournament-style turn-based tactics game Telepath Psy Arena 2.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $100 or more
About $100

NAME A CHARACTER

Get everything in the Digital All-in Tier, plus name a character in multiplayer! (Submit any character name of your choice, within reason, to be included within the game's random name generator.) On top of that, you'll get a free copy of Telepath RPG: Servants of God!

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $125 or more
About $125

THE INITIATE

Get everything in the Name a Character Tier, plus get a free copy of The Beginner's Guide to Programming RPGs, a book I've written but never before released! This book covers every aspect of coding RPGs: from movement to combat, inventory systems to enemy to AI, it's all in here. No prior programming experience is necessary; not available anywhere else!

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $200 or more
About $200

THE SUMMONER

Get everything in the Initiate Tier, plus learn the incantation to summon me on Skype (or Google Hangouts, if you prefer)! Want design advice or feedback on a project idea? Want beard-trimming tips? Want to argue over which Monty Python film was best? It's up to you; I'm all yours for at least 1 hour! (And of course, you'll have my contact info available for the future.)

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $200 or more
About $200

LET'S PLAY OF YOUR CAMPAIGN

Get everything in the Initiate Tier, plus I will personally play through a Telepath Tactics campaign that you create and record it as a Let's Play series to be shown on The Sinister Design Channel on Youtube.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $400 or more
About $400

FOUNDER

Get everything in the Be an NPC+ Tier, plus you'll get an island named after you! (Or, if you prefer, come up with another name of your choice.) I'll come up with a story behind how you came to have the island named after you; this will become part of the lore of the Telepath series, and will remain in all games going forward!

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $500 or more
About $500

BE A VILLAIN

Get everything in the Initiate Tier, plus appear in the official single player campaign as a villainous boss character that the player has to defeat! (If I were contributing to this campaign, I'd totally pick this one. Just sayin'.)

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $1,000 or more
About $1,000

BE A PLAYABLE CHARACTER

Get everything in the Initiate Tier, plus you'll appear in the official single player campaign as an actual playable character that the player recruits into his or her army! We'll work with you to decide your character's backstory, personality, and combat abilities. Seriously awesome.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $2,000 or more
About $2,000

THE ASSISTANT DESIGNER

Get everything in the Initiate Tier, plus work with me to design a mission in the official campaign (including scripted dialog, the battle itself, and events that happen beforehand)! You will be credited as an Assistant Designer.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $5,000 or more
About $5,000

WINE AND DINE

Pick whatever you like from the tiers below $5,000; on top of that, I will fly you out to Chicago from any location in the contiguous United States and take you out for an awesome evening with all the best food and drinks I know of around the city! (Free bonus: get me drunk enough, and I will totally dish dirt on the Octodad team.)